wow

Gmail is huge. Not even three years ago, Google reported that the platform had passed a billion active users. Now the email service, still steady on its path to world domination, has announced on Twitter that it's accumulated another 500 million users, totaling 1.5 billion.

Battle.net is the one-stop shop for all Blizzard games, from Overwatch to World of Warcraft. But until now, there wasn't a mobile app available to chat with your friends or manage your profile, like Steam offers. Seemingly out of nowhere, Blizzard has released a Battle.net companion app for Android.

Early last year, Facebook got all emotional, allowing us to do more than just actively like or passively dislike a thing. Reactions were introduced in the biggest shake-up the Like button had ever seen. This made it possible to react to a post with the entire range of human emotions. Well, with love, laughter, shock, sadness, or anger. Of course, this wasn't enough. We want to be able to react with emotion to everything. So now Facebook is bringing these same options to the comments below posts, too.

Sometimes, getting companies to admit what we all know is a huge game of cat and mouse. We all know, for example, that Motorola was still making phones before Google bought the company and still has to release some of those phones. We can also guess, based on the most recent Googorola announcements, that the hardware is good, but not really up to the standards we have come to expect from, say, the Nexus line. Well, in a stunning display of candor, Google's CFO agrees.

During a session at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, the Chief Financial Officer for the software giant said that the products that Motorola is currently working on "aren't 'wow' by Google standards." That's not just speaking about past devices (which companies are typically more willing to be honest about).

Google just launched a $1,300 laptop. That's a pretty big deal. In fact, it's a pretty huge deal. In double fact, if our team wasn't about to get on a podcast (see you at 8PM EST!) I'd be sharing all manner of reasons why that's a monumental deal. Unfortunately for you, that will have to wait until tomorrow. For now, we can only talk about the device itself. So, what is it?

It's a high-end laptop with an incredibly dense display. 2560x1700 in a 12.85" screen for 239 ppi. Let me put that in layman's terms: holy mother of crap this screen is awesome.

In the tech world, it's almost impossible to launch a high-profile device without someone claiming you've infringed a patent somewhere. Today, it's Nokia's turn with the Nexus 7. The Finnish company has stated that it believes the Nexus 7 violates some of its standards-essential patents relating to WiFi. The announcement seems to be a more casual nod to Google and ASUS to simply fork over a bit of cash, akin to the Rob Schneider prompting Kevin for a tip in Home Alone 2*.

Said Nokia to the Inquirer:

"Nokia has more than 40 licensees, mainly for its standards essential patent portfolio, including most of the mobile device manufacturers.